Mr Yang, Vice Minister of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said: "We have to invest most of our energy in resolving problems arising from the accident, so the reform plans might be on hold for a bit".

But Mr Yang said the direction of reform would not change, and China's nine domestic airlines would still be merged into three new groups based on Air China, China Southern and China Eastern.

The consolidation is seen as important by aviation experts, who say the merged groups should be stronger and better managed.

Howard Gorges of South China Brokerage told the BBC's World Business Report the merger is expected to take between two and four years to complete.

'Weak' signal

In Dalian, divers have yet to recover flight CJ 6136's black box flight recorders, though a weak radio signal from the recorders has reportedly been picked up.

Recovery crews pulled a 15 metre section of the plane from the water on Friday.

Chinese officials said it was unclear whether the rest of the plane was under water intact, or had been destroyed upon impact.

The Chinese-assembled Boeing MD-82 went down minutes after the pilot reported a fire had broken out aboard.

Witnesses said the plane crashed into the sea some 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Dalian airport after making several circles in the air.

Previous crashes

The crash came only weeks after an Air China plane crashed in South Korea.

On 15 April, 129 people died when an Air China Boeing 767 crashed into a fog-covered mountain near the southern city of Busan, as the plane was trying to land at Gimhae airport.

South Korean officials have suggested pilot error was to blame in that crash.

China Northern Airlines, established in 1990, is based in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning. It has 24 MD-82s among its fleet.

It is due to be merged with the larger China Southern airline as part of China's proposed airline reforms.